Introduction:

In Colombia, research on HIV in people who inject drugs (PID) is scarce, despite being a key group for infection control.

Objective:

To determine the prevalence of HIV and its associated factors in PID treated in a health service provider institution (IPS) in Medellín-Colombia.

Methods:

Prevalence study in 293 PID from an IPS specialized in the care of infectious diseases. A survey was applied to collect sociodemographic and health data, immunochromatography for infection screening, and positive cases were confirmed with Western blot. Analyzes were performed in SPSS 27.0.

Results:

The median age was 29 years, 84% men, 52% without schooling and high frequency of sexual risk factors. HIV prevalence was 5.5%, of these 87.5% co-infected with hepatitis C virus and 53.6% with hepatitis B virus. HIV prevalence was statistically higher in subjects older than 29 years of age (10.4%), those who live on the streets (25.5%), without schooling (9.9%) and those who receive money or drugs in exchange for sex (11.6%).

Conclusion:

A higher prevalence of HIV was obtained in comparison with previous studies of the city; a high proportion of co-infection with hepatitis B and C viruses, and groups with a higher occurrence of HIV were identified. These results, in addition to providing a baseline to evaluate subsequent interventions in this group, demonstrate the intersectionality in the risk of HIV, injecting drug use, viral hepatitis, low schooling, homelessness, and others social and health conditions, that show the clinical, epidemiological and social complexity to impacting HIV in this group.

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